though, emerging markets can boast about their own ivory towers. Six of China's universities are ranked among the top two hundred in the world, as are two each in India and Russia.6 The shift in quality is even more pronounced at the graduate level, with the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad and the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Beijing recently included in the top twenty-five of the Financial Times' Global MBA rankings in 2010, taking their place alongside such storied institutions as Harvard Business School, Wharton, and the London Business School.7 Notably, 26 percent of the students at ISB and 33 percent at CEIBS are women, a figure on par with representation at top MBA campuses in the developed world.8
Furthermore, many Western-based business schools are partnering with or opening their own campuses in emerging markets. France-based INSEAD, one of the world's top-ranked business schools, has offered full-time MBA degrees at its Singapore branch since 2000; it opened an executive education center in Abu Dhabi in 2007. This is no isolated trend: University of Chicago's Booth School of Business has had an executive MBA program based in Singapore since 2001, and Harvard Business School established a presence in Shanghai in 2010.9 If the enrollment trends above are any guide, a significant percentage of the students will be women.
The good news for global companies: educated women in emerging markets are already important sources of skills and expertise. The rising demand for advanced education, the corresponding opportunities now available in their home countries, and the increasing number of women taking advantage of these opportunities will indelibly change the face of talent in the years ahead.
ASPIRATION AND AMBITION
“When I was growing up, I never thought I would be someone,” confides Aisha al-Suwaidi. Both of her parents were uneducated: her father was a fisherman in Sharjah, her mother had gone to elementary school for only a few grades. As a result, after the UAE became independent in 1971, “both my parents pushed all of their children to get an education.”
Al-Suwaidi's timing couldn't have been more fortuitous. The local economy was booming, foreign universities were establishing UAE satellites, and al-Suwaidi was in the thick of it, earning first a business degree and then switching her focus to career counseling.
Now the director general for Dubai Women Establishment, al-Suwaidi is passionate about improving opportunities for women in the UAE. “Political advocacy is one of the most important things I work on. I'm talking about being able to deliver something unique, which will impact a lot of people, for which you'll be remembered for generations.”
Highly educated women the world over are ambitious, but the widespread nature of ambition and aspiration among women in the BRIC countries and the UAE is extraordinary (see figure 1-2). The majority of women surveyed consider themselves “very ambitious,” compared with only 36 percent of their American counterparts. Aspiration levels are equally impressive (see figure 1-3).
Armed with their freshly minted diplomas, women in emerging markets are hungry to prove themselves, even more so than their male classmates. One HR leader for a global management consultancy that recently reentered the Chinese market says, “For the majority of college grads, career is a very important thing, but we often find female candidates to be as competitive, if not more so, than their male counterparts.” So many highly qualified women are applying for jobs, in fact, that her boss jokingly remarked, “Finally, here's one place where we don't have to worry about equal opportunity.”
FIGURE 1-2
Percentage of women with high level of ambition
FIGURE 1-3
Women who aspire to a top job
These impressive levels of aspiration are no accident. The fast-evolving nature of the emerging market economies amplifies a sense of possibility and optimism. You only have to open your eyes and look around to see the proof that dreams can become concrete reality, says Alpna Khera, a senior commercial leader running a $30MM P&L at GE's transportation division in India. “People have created fortunes in this market, and it is encouraging to know that one can create opportunities for oneself and achieve great things,” she says. Her own career trajectory is defined by an unambiguous desire for continued advancement within leadership ranks. Khera was the first woman in India to work in a gas-based power plant—at a time when there was no separate women's washroom—and aspires to eventually be the head of GE Energy in India.
Many of the women we spoke to were keenly aware of their role and participation at a significant point in the history of their countries, in essence being part of a huge national development project. The adrenaline rush of being front and center in a tremendous transition fuels ambition in a big way. “In Europe, you would work on refining a company's business strategy. Here, you have the opportunity to be involved in high-impact projects that are reshaping countries and the region as a whole,” explains Leila Hoteit, an Abu Dhabi-based principal at Booz & Company working with public sector entities.
Part of what propels the extraordinary ambition of women in emerging markets is a seismic shift in their family roles and social status. The regions' rapid economic growth has transformed gender roles in a way that the West tends to underestimate, not only by encouraging female participation in the workforce but also by enabling women to move into management positions in impressive numbers. They can aspire to high-flying careers because of another startling change on the home front: on average, women in BRIC countries have fewer than three children, and in China and Russia fewer than two—a huge decline from past generations.10 (We discuss the details of this metamorphosis in the chapters focusing on specific countries.)
As women move into management positions, a startling number are earning salaries equal to or greater than their spouses. In Brazil, China, Russia, and the UAE, we found that nearly 20 percent or more of women working full time outearn their spouses. The power of the purse, even more than educational opportunities and career aspirations, is helping women break through the social traditions that held back many in their mothers' generation. After all, a mother-in-law is less likely to expect her son's wife to wait on her hand and foot when she's bringing home a big share of the family income.
With living costs escalating in emerging markets, especially in urban areas, women's contribution to household expenses is not only appreciated but also indispensable. Six of the thirty most expensive cities in the world are in Russia, China, and Brazil.11 “Women have to work because the cost of living in Moscow and St. Petersburg is very expensive,” says Veronika Bienert, a senior executive at Siemens Russia. Similarly, a Beijing-based HR manager notes, “In China today, there is no way that only the husband can work and the wife stay home, because you need the income on both sides.”
With financial need trumping cultural pressure, the majority of women in our sample do not experience social pressure to quit work after they marry or even upon the birth of their first child, with the exception of India, where traditional social norms adhere far more closely than elsewhere. Yet even there, change is imminent. One Indian executive explained that her entire family supported the choices she has made as a working mother: “My husband says, ‘There's no way you are leaving your job. You're too driven, you're well qualified, and you have ambition.’ My mother wanted to study and couldn't, so she pushed me to achieve things she was not able to. I would never consider leaving my job” for fear of disappointing her.
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